I didn't realize being rated down was being tarred and feathered. You're saying at the same time that it doesn't matter and that you don't notice, and in the next comparing it to being tarred and feathered.

I disagree. I've never liked (or used) the rating system precisely because IMO it's far more likely to be about popular versus unpopular speech than it is about useful versus non-useful (which is the actual stated purpose).

You're conflating two different points. The fact that it's all about popularity doesn't negate your "freedom of speech".

The point is that people near minimum wage are affected by minimum wage increases. The closer you are to this, the more you are affected. Your argument was saying that only people making exactly minimum wage are affected, which is ridiculous. Employers aren't paying people slightly over minimum wage to make a statistical point either, they pay slightly over minimum wage to try and keep employees slightly longer at sub standard wages. Amusing straw man though.

Huh? I never said that only those "at minimum wage" are affected. In fact, I've argued repeatedly that everyone is affected to some degree, and those most affected are those closest to minimum wage. I've said repeatedly that everyone earning a wage between the initial minimum and the new one is affected. I just disagree that this is necessarily "good" for all of them. I've also said that those earning just over the new minimum will be affected as well (and for them *always* in the negative).

And no. Employers aren't paying people "slightly over minimum wage" for any specific reason at all. As I just pointed out, there is no massive clumping of wages at any specific level like we'd expect to see if the "pay them just a bit over the minimum" was such a common occurrence. People tend to start at low waged, and then improve over time. And the statistics bear that out. The case of some poor guy never earning more than a tiny bit over minimum wage for his entire life is exceptionally rare, and generally has nothing to do with evil bosses and a lot more to do with bad work habits (and often criminal habits) of the employee.

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that's fair, lets say full time then. 40-60 hours a week. The rest of your sentence is correct, except that you're painting the line where someone gets food stamps as arbitrary which it's not.

Ok. Then I'm not sure what the point is. And I didn't say it's always arbitrary, but it can be arbitrary. In theory, the dollar values at which we decide that a family of X requires Y amount of food stamps is based on calculations of spending/costs/etc. But there's nothing to prevent those in charge from simply deciding to raise the dollar amounts. And if you make the justification circular, then there's even less reason not to. If your definition of "poor" is "anyone who receives food stamps", then if I want to make it seem like more people are poor in order to justify whatever socio-economic policy I want to implement (like raising minimum wage, increasing welfare levels, or whatever), then all I have to do is raise the dollar level at which food stamps are granted, right?

That's what I was talking about.

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It's not circular at all. No one is picking a number for food stamps in order to somehow justify food stamps, that's another straw man.

They aren't *now*. If we implemented the proposed system of determining "poverty" based on the dollar value of food stamp eligibility, then that would change. Increase the dollar value, and you increase the number of poor people. And if you tie other welfare systems to this, you increase the number of people "in need", even if they aren't really in need.

Do I need to go dig out all those food stamp studies which more or less concluded that food insecurity not only wasn't correlated with whether food stamps were received, but in fact had a negative correlation (ie: people in the same income ranges who received food stamps were more likely to suffer food insecurity than those who weren't)? Cause that's always a hoot! And that's with the current, non-circular method.

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The number is picked using the standard of how much money is needed to support yourself and your dependents with lodging and food.

Yes. Now. You apparently missed the part where I said "if we make this change, then this result will occur".

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If you come up short, food stamps are there to help compensate. This criteria is also a good point at which to say, if you're working full time, you shouldn't be below this number. There is no circularity at all, you determine a number that people need to live, and move forward to multiple conclusions, one is that people who make less need food stamps. The other is that someone working full time should be over this line.

Sure, sure. But that's missing the whole point. I responded to a proposal that we tie minimum wage to qualification for food stamps. So if you "worked as much as you could" and still qualified for food stamps, then whatever wage you earned wasn't enough, so minimum wage should be raised.

The problem is that this gives those who want to raise the minimum wage a reason to do so by raising the dollar amount at which you qualify for food stamps. It'll no longer be based on some assessment of the financial needs with regard to food security, but subject to political manipulation. Best not to do that in the first place.

Um... And it also misses a whole chunk of the issue. Not everyone who earns a given hourly wage is supporting the same number of mouths. So while $7.50/hour is certainly not enough to raise a family of four on, it's probably more than enough for a high school kid still living at home. You're conflating two very different things by trying to tie hourly wages to food stamp need. And IMO, you're going to cause counter productive results if you try. As I've stated repeatedly, raising minimum wage overwhelmingly increases the wages for those who need them least (high school and college kids who are receiving financial support and don't need high wages), at the expense overwhelmingly of those who most need their wages (single working class parents).

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The rest of your rhetoric is just that. I think a company needs to be responsible to it's employees. Taking advantage of them to squeeze out the maximum profit is unethical. Profit is fine, but there should be a responsibility to ensure that someone who works for you full time, especially for an extended period of time is able to take care of themselves, which is in the lower tier of our economy, often not the case. Your argument has merit, but falls apart when a company has too much power and unbalances the relationship. At such a point, when they can start taking advantage of the employees, there needs to be laws that step in and prevent this from happening. This has been so clearly illustrated over and over again, that the concept that labour laws somehow hurt the workers in the long run is ludicrous.

I disagree. I think that trying to impose a system where employers are forced to pay people more than their labor is actually worth is unethical. I think it not only is unfair to the employers, but also hurts the employees in the long run. It creates a false 'floor' for labor that is higher than it should be, which in turn eliminates what should be a smooth gradual upward mobility slope and turns it into a hard wall. The result is a lot of earnings bang for little labor buck at the bottom end, with a hard and steep climb past that point which most people wont bother doing.

If you start at say $5/hour, and then you earn every dollar above that, you will tend to expend the effort to improve the value of your labor as you go along. This will tend to continue for most people well past the point of whatever minimum "living wage" we might have our government set (let's say $15/hour). You gain something every step of the way, so you continue to work hard all the way through your career.

if instead, you just set the minimum at $15/hour, one of two things happen. Either inflation occurs, and $15/hour becomes the new $5/hour, and there's no benefit at all except some disruption of prices and elimination of wealth *or* it doesn't occur (which is the entire assumption behind even attempting it), and you end out with people earning $15/hour just for showing up to work. But, assuming no inflation, employers are not going to pay anything above that except for employees who's labor actually justifies the higher wage. So you're now earning $15/hour while only providing $5/hour worth of labor. You have to increase the value of your labor by $10/hour before you'll see one cent of a raise.

It creates a wall blocking upward mobility at/from the low end. Most people in a "living wage" economy will simply sit at that minimum living wage level and never advance. It's a trap. And it's unfair.

I disagree. I've never liked (or used) the rating system precisely because IMO it's far more likely to be about popular versus unpopular speech than it is about useful versus non-useful (which is the actual stated purpose).

You're conflating two different points. The fact that it's all about popularity doesn't negate your "freedom of speech".

I didn't say it "negated" my freedom of speech. Want to try again? This time without the absurd absolutist straw man?

I disagree. I've never liked (or used) the rating system precisely because IMO it's far more likely to be about popular versus unpopular speech than it is about useful versus non-useful (which is the actual stated purpose).

You're conflating two different points. The fact that it's all about popularity doesn't negate your "freedom of speech".

I didn't say it "negated" my freedom of speech. Want to try again? This time without the absurd absolutist straw man?

I just clicked the red arrow because jesus christ man, this a forum not a @#%^ing novel.

Um.. Ok. Short version:

The best way to maximize the "haves versus have-nots" effect in a society is to increase minimum wage to a "living wage" level. Bonus points if you also add things like subsidized housing, food, transportation, etc to those near that living wage level. You increase the amount of effort required to advance beyond that living wage level at the same time you decrease the motivation and reward for doing so.

I disagree. I've never liked (or used) the rating system precisely because IMO it's far more likely to be about popular versus unpopular speech than it is about useful versus non-useful (which is the actual stated purpose).

You're conflating two different points. The fact that it's all about popularity doesn't negate your "freedom of speech".

I didn't say it "negated" my freedom of speech. Want to try again? This time without the absurd absolutist straw man?

I never said that "my freedom of speech" was gone. I said that by continually rating down posts you disagree with (not just mine), you create an environment that is hostile to any speech that is unpopular, and thus will suppress "free speech", not just by me, but by anyone who contemplates posting something which the majority may not like. It's not an absolute, but a trend.

And as I've stated repeatedly, this is the entire point of rating down unpopular views. Why do you think people rate posts in this forum? Seriously. The entire point is to try to drive away speech that isn't liked. Now when the criteria for that is "spammers and gold sellers", that's one thing. But when it's "opinions I don't like", it's something entirely different. Hence my comment. There are far far too many people on this forum who react to opinions they don't like by trying to make them just go away rather than engaging them in conversation.

Personally, I tend to take that as an admission that on some level they know that the opinion has merit, they don't know how to respond to it, so they lash out at it instead. I always find it interesting that the posts I make that I think of as the ones making the strongest arguments tend to be the ones most likely to be rated down, often with little or no posted response. People will jump on any post I make that presents a weak argument (or even one where I just make a mistake writing out what I"m trying to say), almost gleefully in fact. But they tend to not respond with a post when I make strong points. And yeah, that speaks volumes to me about the reasons why people rate my posts.

See? Why can't you do that with the rest of your hilariously erroneous opinions?

I would. You honestly haven't noticed that I usually start out a topic with short declarative posts, then people say "But gbaji, what about this and that and this other thing", then my posts get longer and longer as I have to provide more detailed explanations for what I'm saying. Then I get complaints about the length of my posts, which I find ironic.

Why are we still talking about gbaji's karma e-peen? Apparently someone has already kissed it and put a band-aid on it.

Also, since when does freedom of speech apply to the internet? Red arrows are not going to stop anyone from expressing themselves here, anyway, unless it has caused such undue mental anguish that they cannot bring themselves to relive that kind of torment.

Are you going to rage-quit gbaji? That'd be a real shame. Aside from the occasional outbursts of "DUDE!" you are a great deal less of a crybaby than any of your like-minded fellows on the internet. I mean, what would someone here have to say before you're threatening to shoot them or typing in all capital letters about how they're all going to burn in ****?

Hey guys here is 3 paragraphs where I try to legitimize some dude earning 1000X the rate of his employees. Even though he can take 10x the pay and still live comfortably. 70$.hr@60hrs/wk(-2wk holiday) = 210K Personal Take home (before taxes).

Not a shabby chunk of money. Unless you a greedy @#%^.

210k is pretty low, and rapid shock would cause a brain drain. Much better to slowly taper via tax reforms.

Also, since when does freedom of speech apply to the internet? Red arrows are not going to stop anyone from expressing themselves here, anyway, unless it has caused such undue mental anguish that they cannot bring themselves to relive that kind of torment.

I'm talking about the principle of free speech, not the legal/constitutional "freedom of speech". Respecting other people's opinions, even when you disagree with them, is a core part of that principle. This doesn't require you sitting quietly by while someone says something you don't like, but on an internet forum, we're all free to post what we want, right? So if you disagree, you're free to express your disagreement.

I just personally feel that rating posts is a poor way of doing this. It's more of a philosophical thing, and honestly has nothing to do with how people rate or don't rate me. I never used the forum rating tool even way back when I mostly posted on the EQ forum, and was well thought of as a good source of knowledge about the game. There's a reason why my title is "encyclopedia", and I used to have a green name before I shifted to almost exclusively posting about politics and whatnot.

I've always felt that the problem with any forum rating system is that it enforces cliques. Rates become less about whether people post interesting and thought provoking ideas, or useful information, and more about whether they post things that aligns with the majority of the forum. It's an interesting study in forum group dynamics really. I'm honestly more amused by how much weight other people place on such things. And, as usual, I'm more than willing to engage in discussion on any subject, even this one.

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Are you going to rage-quit gbaji? That'd be a real shame. Aside from the occasional outbursts of "DUDE!" you are a great deal less of a crybaby than any of your like-minded fellows on the internet. I mean, what would someone here have to say before you're threatening to shoot them or typing in all capital letters about how they're all going to burn in ****?

Lol! You're kidding, right? Of course not. As I've said repeatedly, this isn't about me. It's about you guys. I treat this forum as somewhere to just go and practice different positions on different issues to see how people respond, what arguments they use, and to be completely honest, at what point they'll abandon arguments and just resort to name calling. Doesn't mean that I just make up positions to be contrary or something (although I'll admit I have on occasion picked purely devils advocate positions when I don't personally care). I really do think that a gap between rich and poor is a sign of a healthy economy with lots of upward mobility and opportunity and *not* a bad thing. I really do think that *** couples shouldn't qualify for marriage benefits. I really do think that socialized medicine is a bad idea. Those are my positions (along with a host of others).

But honestly, my goal on this forum is less about arguing my positions as trying to get people to recognize and use good arguments versus bad ones. It's something I see far too much of. I'll eternally challenge arguments of the "anyone who doesn't agree with me is bad" form. So there's that. And if the pattern of ratedowns I get is any indication (while we're on the subject anyway), people care less about me challenging their positions on issues as they do with me challenging why they hold those positions. And that's something I find very very interesting.

I really do think that a gap between rich and poor is a sign of a healthy economy with lots of upward mobility and opportunity and *not* a bad thing.

you realize that this is not backed up by any example in reality ever right? Just saying.

Obviously there is always a gap between a rich person and poor person by definition. My point would be when that gap grows, especially to extremes as it is doing right now, that is not a sign of a health economy at all.

Hey guys here is 3 paragraphs where I try to legitimize some dude earning 1000X the rate of his employees. Even though he can take 10x the pay and still live comfortably. 70$.hr@60hrs/wk(-2wk holiday) = 210K Personal Take home (before taxes).

Not a shabby chunk of money. Unless you a greedy @#%^.

210k is pretty low, and rapid shock would cause a brain drain. Much better to slowly taper via tax reforms.

Oh yeah. And, as I started to mention initially, what do you think the rich people do with that money?

The higher someone's earnings, the greater the percentage of those earnings they will spend investing versus consuming. Put another way, let's imagine we decide to reduce someone's earnings from say $1m/year to $800k/year, and distribute that $200k difference by increasing 20 employees salaries from $25k/year to $35k/year (an example which was mentioned earlier). What is the result?

That $200k in the hands of the employer would have been invested, either back into his own business, or into some other business via the market. We can argue about the direct effect of that specific money, but on the whole, it's that money that creates new jobs, allows people to get loans, buy homes, start new businesses, develop new technology and products, etc. And all of that benefits us all in a big way over time. It creates long term sustainable growth.

That $200k in the hand of the employees will be spent buying more stuff for themselves. So while they will benefit, the only benefit the rest of us will see is via the effect of their consumption. That's not zero, but is basically contributing to economic growth from the other side (you have to have both an increase in production *and* an increase in demand for the production to realize growth).

Point number one: It's more than wrong to say that the employer is "greedy" to keep that money for himself. In all probability, his own standard of living will not change one bit whether he keeps it or gives it to his employees. On the other hand, the employees desire to receive the money is greed, since he benefits directly and significantly from it. Not saying that this doesn't also have to do with "need", but just pointing out that the argument that the rich person doesn't need the money and is just being greedy to get more is inherently flawed.

Point two is that neither of those is inherently "better" than the other. However, we should allow the market to naturally cause the money to flow where it goes. Market forces will react to market needs (naturally even). So if there's more money in the supply side and people aren't buying enough of the products being designed and built, it'll naturally flow into people's consumer pockets and adjust for that imbalance. We don't need the government to do this manually. If the market will better benefit if those workers earn $10k/year more each year, then wages will rise. There's a whole set of long explanation as to why, but you have to trust that they will. As I've pointed out in the past, businesses don't make any money if there's no one with sufficient dollars to buy their goods. Labor demand is a market force, just like consumption demand is.

I guess what I'm getting at is that we should always default to *not* using the government to try to force a change on the economy unless there's absolutely clear justification for it. The economic need for an increase in minimum wage is non-existent. So we shouldn't do it.

I really do think that a gap between rich and poor is a sign of a healthy economy with lots of upward mobility and opportunity and *not* a bad thing.

you realize that this is not backed up by any example in reality ever right? Just saying.

Obviously there is always a gap between a rich person and poor person by definition. My point would be when that gap grows, especially to extremes as it is doing right now, that is not a sign of a health economy at all.

Ok. What is the correlation between the gap between rich and poor in the US over the last say 150 years relative to the increase or decrease in quality of life for the working class. Go!

But honestly, my goal on this forum is less about arguing my positions as trying to get people to recognize and use good arguments versus bad ones. It's something I see far too much of. I'll eternally challenge arguments of the "anyone who doesn't agree with me is bad" form. So there's that. And if the pattern of ratedowns I get is any indication (while we're on the subject anyway), people care less about me challenging their positions on issues as they do with me challenging why they hold those positions. And that's something I find very very interesting.

So basically the goal is to keep going no matter what until everyone else is tired of talking about it-- or until the subject comes up again and we all find ourselves in an intense state of deja vu whereas we can vaguely remember talking about it before but are fuzzy about the details and end up saying the exact same things over and over every year in some never-ending cycle.

What'll it be tomorrow? Let's spin the wheel and pray to Helix challenging the status quo doesn't mean attempting to justify the murder of another unarmed teenager.

But honestly, my goal on this forum is less about arguing my positions as trying to get people to recognize and use good arguments versus bad ones. It's something I see far too much of. I'll eternally challenge arguments of the "anyone who doesn't agree with me is bad" form. So there's that. And if the pattern of ratedowns I get is any indication (while we're on the subject anyway), people care less about me challenging their positions on issues as they do with me challenging why they hold those positions. And that's something I find very very interesting.

There you go starting off with the same flawed assumption that all your posts start with; that you know more, can argue better, recognize good vs bad arguments better than the average joe on this forum.

You might have said something like: "Despite our differing opinions, I can maybe learn things and better understand stuff by debating and discussing ideas with all sorts of different people that I'd not normally encounter in my day to day life."

There you go starting off with the same flawed assumption that all your posts start with; that you know more, can argue better, recognize good vs bad arguments better than the average joe on this forum.

I like that he thinks the contrarian positions he takes "for everyone else's good" are actually thought provoking. That really says a lot about his range.

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George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

But honestly, my goal on this forum is less about arguing my positions as trying to get people to recognize and use good arguments versus bad ones.

Honestly and sincerely, most of your "arguments" are terrible. Poor logic, poorly constructed, overly bloated to the extent where you start introducing errors for points you never needed to address in the first place. You constantly show yourself to be uneducated about topics and then revert to a lame "Well, it's just my opinion, man" defense to cover for your factual errors. You regularly try to act like the smartest guy in the room by denouncing "experts" and giving lengthy ideology rather than data based "counter arguments" and then are proven hilariously wrong (polls are a regular example of this). That's not to say everyone else does a consistently stellar job but then no one else here is claiming to be a light in the debating darkness either.

Even more amusing is the idea that you think you've proven anything if someone starts casually insulting or whatever and your self-assured belief that this proves you were right. You know, as opposed to people just not giving a serious effort because it's a web forum and when you know the other guy will never concede a point you eventually just get bored and post for amusement. Come on man, you've been around long enough to know that the Jane Goodall argument is one of the lamest defenses of crappy posting. "I just wanted to see what you'd say! You all fell right into my trap and proved my hypothesis!" -- this is **** that 4th rate trolls say when everyone is laughing at them. Use your supposed "logic" for a second: You really think you learn anything when one guy is treating it as serious business and everyone else is in it for the lulz?

This is where I'd post my Muppets picture if it wasn't too much effort to trawl old posts looking for the image number.

Ironically, the healthiest meal I was able to get at McDs was also the cheapest. Grilled chicken value meal sandwich, no mayo. Side salad, no cheese or mayo. Cup of water. About $3.50 or so for a relatively balanced meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables, under 400 calories total.

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FFXI: Catwho on Bismarck: Retired December 2014

Thayos wrote:

I can't understand anyone who skips the cutscenes of a Final Fantasy game. That's like going to Texas and not getting barbecue.

Ironically, the healthiest meal I was able to get at McDs was also the cheapest. Grilled chicken value meal sandwich, no mayo. Side salad, no cheese or mayo. Cup of water. About $3.50 or so for a relatively balanced meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables, under 400 calories total.

What a waste, I can get 3 McDoubles worth about 1200 calories for that price.

I just clicked the red arrow because jesus christ man, this a forum not a @#%^ing novel.

Um.. Ok. Short version:

The best way to maximize the "haves versus have-nots" effect in a society is to increase minimum wage to a "living wage" level. Bonus points if you also add things like subsidized housing, food, transportation, etc to those near that living wage level. You increase the amount of effort required to advance beyond that living wage level at the same time you decrease the motivation and reward for doing so.

Get it?

See why can't you just post like this.

You may increase the amount of effort to advance above the required living amount, but you also require less effort to maintain that required living amount. Its no lie that people on a part time job can not afford to live an average lifestyle in the US. Raising the minimum wage may allow more people to do that it will pull some people off government assistance, and it will reduce assistance many need by pulling the very large % of people that aren't close to the average living requirements closer to it.

And it has no impact on anyone already over those amounts, other than some ego thing where they think they are entitled to earn more because they worked there longer. If a company feels long term employees deserve to keep their spread from minimum earners, then that is the companies choice. Just as it is the companies choice to pay one dude 1000x more than the average earner in the company. and if you don't like that someone who just started earns closer to the same amount you do...you can always go and find a new job that will pay you what you think you deserve.

Ironically, the healthiest meal I was able to get at McDs was also the cheapest. Grilled chicken value meal sandwich, no mayo. Side salad, no cheese or mayo. Cup of water. About $3.50 or so for a relatively balanced meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables, under 400 calories total.

What a waste, I can get 3 McDoubles worth about 1200 calories for that price.

Three sandwiches isn't a meal, it's three sandwiches.

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FFXI: Catwho on Bismarck: Retired December 2014

Thayos wrote:

I can't understand anyone who skips the cutscenes of a Final Fantasy game. That's like going to Texas and not getting barbecue.

Ironically, the healthiest meal I was able to get at McDs was also the cheapest. Grilled chicken value meal sandwich, no mayo. Side salad, no cheese or mayo. Cup of water. About $3.50 or so for a relatively balanced meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables, under 400 calories total.

What a waste, I can get 3 McDoubles worth about 1200 calories for that price.

Three sandwiches isn't a meal, it's three sandwiches.

That other stuff is just shameless overpriced filler so they can make more money. It's fast food, it's McDonalds, the bar is low. You find out what gives you the most calories/dollar and wolf it down before you can start to think about what they made it out of.

Got nothing against their shakes, fries are average, nothing special. It's also entirely possible I've been there too many times in the last couple of years. Something about kids and chicken nuggets, whatever they put in those things to keep the little ones addicted is working.

Yeah, it wouldn't have taken much to be better than that shake. It wasn't inedible but it wasn't anything to purchase twice either.

I doubt I could pass a double blind taste test in salts although the sea salt seems to season my chicken better when I cook it. Might just be the size of the crystals and their reaction to the cooking process or something. Or I'm just a tool of Big Sea Salt.

.... although the sea salt seems to season my chicken better when I cook it.

That's all that matters.

I suspect that the grain size does have something to do with it. I buy course-grained sugar to top my muffins with. It gives better texture.

Its healthier to, since it is largely unprocessed it retains many other mineral deposits like magnesium, potassium, and calcium. Table Salt doesn't retain these minerals due to its processing and is mixed with other additives like Iodine, and an Anti Clumping agent that is not toxic but does nothing of worth for the body.

I said that by continually rating down posts you disagree with (not just mine), you create an environment that is hostile to any speech that is unpopular, and thus will suppress "free speech", not just by me, but by anyone who contemplates posting something which the majority may not like. It's not an absolute, but a trend.

I 110% agree with your assessment of the rating trend, but I disagree with your belief in response to "free speech". Getting rated down, called an idiot, etc., do not affect your ability to speak your mind. Do you honestly believe that we are the only ones that have contrary beliefs? Others are too concerned about being ridiculed, that they either remain reticent or attack the easy targets (e.g., you and me) to fit in. That's the choice that they made. There aren't any laws preventing anyone from participating in these conversations, so therefore, there's no suppression of free speech.

I'm awesome so everything I said is immediately accepted and elevated to the status of majority opinion. Maybe the rest of you should try being awesome?

You built a name for yourself, so you are able to disagree and be respected. If a newbie came here arguing against the norm, s/he would be torched.

And if they had any actual belief in what they were saying they wouldn't care.

Exactly why I said Gbaji is wrong on his belief on suppressing "free speech". Your "free speech" is fully intact. No matter what you believe, you will have critics. You can't go to a pro-life forum, argue abortion and complain about feeling pressured not to talk about abortion.

About $3.50 or so for a relatively balanced meal of protein, carbs, and vegetables, under 400 calories total.

And only .5 kilos of salt.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

You've just equated relative wages with buying power, so wouldn't that by definition mean that the higher the gap the lower the buying power of the lower groups?

Sure. No one's arguing over whether someone with more money has more buying power. But while relative buying power grows as the gap grows, the buying power of the poor person doesn't decrease if the rich person has more money. It doesn't work that way. It's not a zero sum game.

The point I was making about buying power was that raising the minimum wage will not increase the buying power of those at the minimum because costs will adjust to match. So someone at minimum wage prior to the increase is still at the minimum after the increase, and while there may be a brief period of time where his dollars buy more, once prices adjust, he's right back where he started. So there's no increase in buying power for him and a decrease in buying power for everyone who was previously earning a wage between the old and new minimum and who didn't also get a raise to keep them ahead of that minimum.

The point I was making about buying power was that raising the minimum wage will not increase the buying power of those at the minimum because costs will adjust to match.

Good point. Except, of course, that we've raised the minimum wage before, and there's never been inflation related to the wage increase, ever. one of those things that sounds promising in your head, but on paper makes no sense and in practice is obviously idiotic.

For costs to "adjust to an increase in the minimum wage" that increase would have to be, in aggregate, about 1000 times larger than it actually is (not hyperbole, it's really that stupid of an idea). About 3 million workers are paid minimum wage. They work about an average of 1000 hours per year. Raising the minimum wage $5 an hour brings in about another 2 million employees who would now be below the federal minimum, also averaging about 1000 hours per year. So let's just say 5 million at 1000 hours each, or 5 billion hours per year. Let's also just assume they all get a raise of $5, pushing an extra $25B into the economy annually. Your argument is that this $25B increase into a 15 TRILLION+ GDP is going to cause inflation.

Can you really not see how ******* mindnumbingly stupid that is?

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.